


Good Friday

by orphan_account



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Torture, crewtina, mild oral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-06 14:27:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8756119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: As it turns out, Newt's protective loyalty is not always entirely rewarded.





	1. Chapter 1

He should have known that things were going to well.

He should have known.

After all, it wasn’t like things hadn’t turned out in the best way he could have hoped back in New York; sending Queenie to ‘accidentally’ bump in to Jacob and rekindle his contact with the witching world, carrying a very pretty obscural boy out of his godforsaken country and back to somewhere he could have a proper life, helping arrest the radical who cried for the blood of all muggles. Things were never really wonderful without at least a little chaos, and Newt found he couldn’t have been more properly chuffed with the way things had turned out.

He and Credence had undertaken work in Spain, on the hot pursuit of a species of magical, mouse-like creatures with a fondness for teeth. It had proved to be a wonderful time of the year to try it, mild March much more agreeable where rain wasn’t bodily throwing itself at the people on the streets below in a fit of agonized hatred for its loss of crystallized glory. It had been a more sober affair as they’d arrived in the middle of the Lenten season, but he couldn’t deny that things had been overall much better than expected; they’d caught quite a few of the little Ratoncito Pérezes – he’d no idea what the devil the plural was of that, something he’d have to consult with someone on before introducing them in the second volume of his book – and fortunately, the supply of teeth they’d come with seemed to be more than enough to keep his newest studies quite happy.

Fascinating things, them… Creatures who left coins under the pillows of children whose teeth they fed on. His latest theory was that it had begun as a defense against the witches and wizards who might have otherwise hexed the little buggers – after all, the coins always seemed to have a striking similarity to the size and shape of a sickle.

He’d been hammering out the details of their more recent adaptations one morning in early April; many seemed to have developed a preference for only magical children’s teeth, though he had no idea why. It left a peculiar custom amongst the muggles, stealing their own children’s teeth and leaving coins in the wake, as odd a mimicry ritual from one species to another as he’d seen yet.

However, confirming those adaptations meant that he had to gather samples more likely to visit magical households. And that involved setting out to check traps for the creatures that lived far afield, in the less noisy parts surrounding Madrid, where witches and wizards could risk their children’s mistakes with brooms and not need to oblivate their neighbors to senselessness.

It had been easier to make the trek out to his traps – which involved a not inconsiderable distance for a man who didn’t trust a broom any farther than he could sweep it - than it had been to convince Credence to travel in some ways without him to obtain breakfast for the two of them. The boy seemed always anxious that Newt were going to leave him behind (as if he could) or let something overtake him in the scant handful of moments that Credence’s eyes weren’t trained on him (as if he would).

Still, even then, perhaps things had been too easy.

He should have known.

The feeling that he should have hits his stomach the moment his suitcase upends itself, tearing through the sky in an arc and landing smack into the palm of a wizard standing perhaps a click in the distance. Gently, he returns the creature to the field rather than the trap. He’d been in the war; he knows the thickness in the air between himself and this stranger is not a peaceful misunderstanding about poaching.

His hand reaches for his wand, he can feel dragon’s breath hot on his neck, sees before him a world that had died years ago, when he hears another voice call out “Expelliarmus!”

He blinks and he’s back in the field in sunny Spain, where yellow flowers dot the greenery around him. He blinks and there’s a woman behind him, maybe three clicks off, too. She snaps his wand before he can even make an attempt to address her, and he finds his mouth shutting. When he stands, it’s with a grave purpose, and his eyes fall on the man with his suitcase.

“I would advise that you give that back,” he says, and the wizard smiles through the garish, skull-shaped whorls of metallic paint.

“I’ll take it under consideration, Mr. Scamander,” the stranger replies. His voice is clipped, but attempting courteousness, and in no way so accented that Newt could tell he was anything other than an Englishman, himself. Unsurprising, he tries to tell himself, flexing his fingers for center – Grindlewald’s fanatics come from every corner, don’t they? “But first, I would like to make an advisement of my own. I’m sure you’re well aware of who we are, and what we’ve come for. One pet for the others shouldn’t be such a large trade off, should it?”

The blood in his veins freezes, then boils.

“The person you’re talking about is a human being – he’s not a pet. Furthermore, none of the creatures in that case are – “

“Your friends?” a voice calls to the left of him, and he stiffens at it. The mockery, he’s used to; the trouble is, he’s used to that voice, too, though he hasn’t heard it for so many years. Strange, how the mind can recall schoolmates of traumas past so vividly.

The case goes sailing overhead. It hovers right above Newt’s head. He tries and fails to be unpredictable in grabbing at it, only for it to go sailing higher.

His hands drop to his side and his face burns. He knows this game.

“Regardless of what he is, you know where we can locate the obscurus. Provide us with his location, and we’ll be on our way,” the first stranger says, and beneath his paint, Newt recognizes the sneer of Gregory Addams.

“You’re a shame to Slytherin, Gregory,” Newt tells him. “Look at what you’ve become.”

“A man in control of your fate, you mean?” Addams returns, and the suitcase spins delicately. He looks at it, considering. “I would call to mind your present status, but I think we all know you quite shamed your fellow housemates from the beginning. Too bad to see some things never change.”

The suitcase goes flying to the hand of the witch behind him – Leticia Morrinson, he’d know that blinding white hair anywhere. She uses her wand to chuck it, hurtling, to a tawny skinned stranger that Newt has no recollection of. Despite himself, when the stranger sends it flying directly across his chest, Newt stupidly tries to put himself between it, ending up sprawled on his back for all his efforts as the case skips, skids, and shoots up to a fourth member of the little clan.

They give him time to stand up before they find that this is a more fun game than just dizzying him. When it was just the schoolyard, the things Newt was trying to protect were fragile and sentient; a suitcase, and a magical suitcase at that, can take a beating better than the wiry body desperately trying to grasp at it.

He’s out two teeth and a great deal of blood from his nose before his fingers finally clutch around the suitcase, before no amount of jiggling or shaking or bucking can get him apart from it. When he falls to the ground, a stupid moment of hope that their childhood ways will still be upon them comes back to him. The brutal type always did get bored quickly.

“Scamander,” Addams sighs, a frown pressed to his brows, as though he’s truly disappointed, “Just tell us where your little obscurus is, and we’ll go. It would be so much easier. Despite what you may have heard, Grindlewald extols the virtues of sparing magical life where possible. Don’t waste your potential on something so beneath you.”

“Then kindly leave,” Newt replies.

He thinks this would have been enough to perhaps elicit a more ugly response – a thin veneer of civility always was the best Addams could manage, a way to talk to the professors and slide out of trouble. But one of his fellow followers snorts, and beneath the silver paint on his face, he can see the ugliness of the sneer magnify tenfold.

“You will not be mourned,” he says, touching his face paint. “You are not fallen for wizardkind.”

His mind doesn’t have time to register the word that he’s said until he feels searing pain shoot through all of him, making him drop the suitcase in his hands. His body crumples over it, protective with the last dregs of coherency it can manage as he feels the cruciatus curse work its way through him.

It touches every nerve ending, it singes his bones; he can feel every muscle in his body twitch and jerk, and yet he tries his hardest to keep himself locked around the case. His entire existence has boiled down to that one point, and if the things that are being shouted at him are questions, he doesn’t know. He’s beyond them. He’s beyond anything other than his need to defend the animals in his care.

This isn’t the first time he’s suffered; he’s suffered so many pains. But this is the first time that there’s been such an overwhelming totality of it, sure he can feel nerve endings where they shouldn’t be, that the veil of death is fluttering at his cheek, an acidic burn of terror and agony. Yet his limbs stay tucked around the case, tight as ever.

His mouth is clamped shut on reflex, and though he can’t make out any words, he can hear the mocking laughter. Just like old times, except now they can whittle him down to dust, and no professor will stop them.

It takes another curse, and another, before the pain is too much and Newt’s lips break into a sob. A scream he didn’t know he was physically capable of making breeches his own body, and once it starts, he can’t stop, though the outlet is never enough to combat the feeling inside of him.

When death comes, he’s mostly glad at it.

It’s a selfish thought, as he falls, spent and twitching. But it’s all he can think for a moment, while a cold darkness fizzles around him. He hates to leave his animals behind, but it hurt so much. It hurt so much that even the residual pain is worse than any scratch or bite or stab wound he’s ever received, and Newt is still making gasping, gormless half-cries as his eyes dart about, blurry and tear stained.

He realizes that this is not death when he sees a head of blindingly blond hair bounce past him. The smell of blood stings in his nostrils, and he jerkily tries to pick his head up. The name he wants to call out refuses to come to his lips, and instead he gasps again as the mass begins to take form.

Credence bears down upon him, half a man as his teeth bite a bloody hole in Addams’ neck. Newt distantly makes out body parts of the others' scattered, chunks, but he watches Credence wear him down like a whetstone and beast both, taking away what he can’t with tooth and claw by the force of his shadow.

If the others are massacred, then Addams is obliterated; his viscera is a fine mist that blows into the wind, scattering red and pink and flecks of silver paint across the field of green and yellow. The cloud of black takes form, and when Credence touches him, it only hurts worse that his body is repelled. He screams to hit the ground.

“Newt –“ Credence says, and his voice is a hushed whisper, white eyes wide with worry.

But Newt does not reply.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just want everyone to know that 92% of this is Lindsey's fault, and I'm never gonna fucking get over it.

The thing they don’t tell you about passing out is that it’s dreadfully confusing.

Not under any circumstance for having passed out; that usually comes back fairly quickly, barring strong concussions. But it’s confusing to wake up to a room full of extremely tense energy, with healers and loved ones all milling around as though a Tahitian salt worm is going to burst from one’s chest.

At least, that is the experience Newt awakens to.

Well, actually, the first thing is a throbbing pain in… Everywhere. Which is odd, Newt had always thought that there was supposed to be some sort of reprieve after death. There’s a buzzing noise filling the room, and Newt tries to swivel his head, squinting at the bright light awash everywhere.

Something dark fills his vision, and he recognizes the smell before the sight; nobody else smells like smoke and animal fur quite in the same way as his companion.

“Hello,” he says, and his voice is strained and scratchy.

“Newt-“ Credence breathes, and Newt doesn’t have the presence of mind to stop him from reaching out before he’s already wrenching away, screaming in agony.

In the back of his mind, he’s certain Credence only barely touched his arm. But it feels as though it’s on fire now, throbbing and angry down to the marrow in his bones. He isn’t aware tears are leaking down his face until he feels them wicked away by a magic touch, until the static in his ears fizzles back in to voices.

“- Told you not to touch him, Mr. Barebone –“

“He’s my –“

“Doesn’t matter. We’ll have to move him now, stand back –“

“Don’t –“

The lighting in the room flickers, that awful pressure Newt knows by heart now. He hears everyone go still.

“…We should have Jameson check those illumination incantations again,” one of the healers says, and Newt watches figure clad in unmistakable, sense-assaulting lime green move closer. “Mr. Scamander, can you hear me?”

After a moment, he nods.

“Wonderful. I’m Healer Bligh. You’ve been entered into the intensive curses unit in the Spell Damage floor at St. Mungo’s. Do you understand that?” he asks, and now Newt is coming to understand why Credence hates it when he gets a tone of mild concern in his voice, because it is truly grating, “Wonderful. Now, I’m afraid you’ve suffered intense nervous damage due to a few lashings of the cruciatus curse. But we’re going to do our best to have you fixed up in a jiffy.”

“Wonderful,” Newt wheezes.

“Is it alright if we start with your missing teeth?” he says, “We think it might be best to start with your body as whole as possible –“

“Then you might want to start with the brain,” he murmurs, and after a beat of silence, Bligh laughs, stiffly, at the joke.

“Well, we’re going to rotate you then. The pressure from the spells shouldn’t affect you the same as a physical touch,” he tells Newt.

And surprisingly, he’s right, which is a shock as far as Newt’s concerned. Given the fact that most healers still think there’s no cure for thrilling by a vampire, he can’t exactly say he has the highest faith in them. But true to promise, when he floats a little off the table to be turned on his back, it doesn’t hurt at all.

It doesn’t hurt when they turn his head, make his mouth open. The magic does it all, and Newt is free to simply exist for a little while, closing his eyes. Despite the fact that he’s sure he’s been out for a truly outrageous amount of time, he still feels… Tired. So much more tired than he should. Like he might actually settle down with Tina and Credence after this, like –

“What in the BLOODY HELL –“

“It was the right charm!”

“I’m AWARE – I’m. Are you, sure, Healer Havock –“

“It was sir, I heard her –“

There’s silence as Newt tongues the new protrusions in his mouth. Strangely, they feel… Large. Pointed. It takes his mind a moment to rile up the proper level of excitement.

“Fangs!” he says, and he hears the wariness in Healer Bligh’s voice when he speaks again.

“Mr. Scamander, I assure you, we had no way of knowing –“

“It’s wonderful! Could you do it to all my teeth, do you think?” Newt asks, even though speaking is like swallowing handfuls of sand, “It would certainly help with communicating with a vast number of my beasts.”

Healer Bligh’s eyes go very wide, and he looks over to Credence.

“I’m afraid perhaps his psychological trauma may be more severe than we thought,” he says.

“No,” Credence tells him, and Newt can hear he’s trying not to smile, “I’m afraid he’s just like that.”

“For your information, Credence, not all of us can cuddle up to grims like we’re bred from the same litter – Ugh –“ he winces, swallowing harshly. Speaking confirmed for not one of his best ideas.

“He’s really fine,” Credence says. “The fangs aren’t worrying to either of us. But what caused it?”

“Well,” Bligh says, a frown coming between his thickly arched brows, “As I told you before, he was hit from the curses at a volume that’s… A bit staggering, really. And trying to physically resist as much as he did… I’m afraid there’s some negative backlash in his system. The magic inside of him is warping what we’re trying to do.”

“…But you can fix that, can’t you?” Credence asks, and Newt feels the heat leave the room. The Healers all shiver.

“I’m afraid we just don’t know,” he says. “But you should rest for now, Mr. Scamander. We’ll get you sorted, one way or another. And, of course, you’re free to stay with your father, Credence.”

“…Credence?” Newt wheezes, blinking at him.

“Yes, daddy?” he asks, expression perfectly even, and Newt has to resist the urge to burst out laughing.

“…Good to have you here. Thank you, Healers,” Newt manages, and he watches them gently smile before they back out of the room, and he’s free to turn to Credence. “When did you become my son?”

“When they only admit family members to intensive care wards,” Credence tells them.

“Credence… I’m not certain you’ve noticed, but you’re missing a few distinct family traits,” he says. Credence reaches in to his shirt and withdraws a locket. Newt has known it was there, knows the smooth gold shape of it and the little star sapphire that’s set to the face of it. The locket that has both his and Tina’s pictures on it, back on the day of the wedding.

“Not from Tina’s side of the family,” Credence tells him, “At least, not enough to get through, anyway. And I have been living with you since I left New York the first time.”

“So we’re your family,” Newt laughs, and Credence fixes him with an intense look.

“You’ve always been my family,” he says.

“…I suppose so,” Newt agrees, and reaches out for the glass of water left by his bed. He touches it gingerly, thinking it will hurt the same way, expecting the sting of when Credence touched him before. But there’s only the constant, aching soreness inside of him, terrible but not enough to make him lose his mind. Well, not for now, anyway. He manages a few gulps of water before turning back to Credence. “I thought I couldn’t touch?”

“You can’t touch me,” Credence says. “Or the healers. Or your beasts. Nothing living, the energy in your body is rejecting us for some reason.”

“But only when I’m awake?” he asks. Credence shakes his head. The grip on his knees grows tight.

“No. You were hurting even when you were asleep. I tried to kiss you once while the healers were out and… You started screaming. You wouldn’t stop until they came and sedated you. I thought if you were awake, it meant – Well. You screamed less this time, at any rate.”

“It hurt to scream,” Newt jokes. “Ah, does Tina know?”

“She’s been called into field work for a while now, Newt. And getting foreign owls through Argentina isn’t exactly easy.”

“Ah yes. Local superstition and all that. Wouldn’t want anyone thinking Tina is a witch, now would we?”

“At least we know the curses didn’t alter your personality any,” Credence says. “You’re just as insufferable as you were before. Will you be alright for the night? I still have… Duties to attend to.” His hand rests on the suitcase, and Newt feels himself stare in dumbfounded amazement that he smuggled it in, along with himself.

“You know, son, I think I love you,” he says. Credence snorts, and pops the suitcase open.

“Love you too, _daddy_ ,” he says, before disappearing inside.

-

It’s surprisingly difficult to drift off to sleep that night.

Never mind the fact that Newt feels tired enough that he can’t even keep his eyes open. The throbbing pain throughout his body pulses, though, keeps him awake to a degree that is, frankly, obscene. What makes it worse is that the healers are all terrified of using any internal charms on him, so he has to take an extra strength sleeping drought that frankly feels like licking fire and tastes worst.

He must tell Tina he’s finally found her cooking an improvement upon something. Though it certainly doesn’t help that he can’t choose to make that swap, and so suffers many nights punctuated by the singularly unpleasant feeling of his face curdling in disgust before he blacks out.

His one consolation is that Credence is almost always by his side. He would worry if he didn’t already know it was pointless to do so; the boy has, at the very least, learned the value of taking time away to shower and feed himself as well as take care of the animals.

Typically, he tries to make himself sit in the bench near the window. Newt has a small, but entirely private room, which is something of a wonder to him until he thinks about how Credence talked about him screaming in his sleep. Probably not the best for patient morale.

“The room is soundproofed by spell,” Credence tells him, finally broken down to sitting on Newt’s bed, just by him, his hands folded firmly in his lap. His fingers pick at each other with the strain of not touching his lover. “Though, to be honest with you, they may have also given it to you because I was… Slightly distressed.”

“Half obscurial?”

“…Slightly distressed,” Credence sniffs, tossing a few of his dark curls back. “It was half a day before I even knew to take you here, and we were in Spain. Thankfully, there was a very kind Senora Esperanza who let me know where to go. I had to calm down to talk to her, anyway.”

“I notice that hasn’t stopped the healers from asking me about a dozen times if you’ve got an imbalance,” Newt tells him, and Credence wrinkles his nose.

“They’re like gnats.”

“Attracted to sweet things?”

“I’ll call you daddy again, you know. I swear to you, I will,” Credence tells him, and Newt grins, chucking his chin.

“Whatever you say, sport – Credence? What’s wrong?” Newt asks.

The boy looks at him, a little gobsmacked. His dark eyes are wide, then scrunch up, a little glossier than usual. “You touched me.”

Newt blinks.

“Oh. _Oh_!” He stares at his fingers for one moment before trying it again. His whole body still aches, and his fingertips do feel a little… Strange. A little cramped, like he’s slept on them funny somehow. But it doesn’t hurt, and he strokes the line of Credence’s cheekbone in soft amazement. “No, Credence – Don’t cry. Please,”

“You’re crying, you hypocrite –“

“I know, but I look pretty when I cry,” Newt laughs, sniffing, “It just ruins your aesthetic.”

“Shut up,” Credence says, and Newt settles for wiping away a few of his teardrops.

He knows what Credence is thinking, isn’t a legilimens but can hear it as plainly as if he said it out loud: I was so scared, he’s thinking. And Newt can only reply that he was, too. Scared he wouldn’t be able to touch Tina, or Credence, or any of his beasts ever again.

But he can.

“We should call the healers,” Credence tells him, and Newt waves it off.

“They’ll come on soon enough,” he says, willing his voice to be as velvety as it can be. “Why don’t we find some better experiments to take up the time?”

Credence leans in, brushing his lips over Newt’s, just gently, not pressing down.

“I’d like that.”

-

“Well, it is entirely possible you may be… Acclimating to his presence,” Healer Bligh tells Newt, one hand rested on his chin. “After all, none of the healers have been able to touch you yet. But certainly the signature that you’re already so intimately familiar with might be more readily accepted by your body.”

“So what do you think we should do?” Credence asks, and Healer Bligh taps his chin with one finger before shrugging.

“You should probably keep close to him as you have been. If our theory is true, then he may reach a point where he doesn’t feel any extra pain from contact with you.”

“…Meaning?” Credence asks, and Bligh smiles.

“Just keep casual contact. Push it a little further each day. That sort of thing,” he says.

“You want me to touch him?” Credence asks, and when Healer Bligh nods, Newt can feel as much as see the queer smile that takes over his expression, “That, I can most definitely do.”

-

There must have been a point where the suspension of disbelief had worn off and the healers had mutually figured out that Credence was not, in fact, Newt’s son.

He was suspicious it had happened before his neck was littered with hickies, but absolutely certain of it once one of the healers had remarked on what a strange and fascinating coloration he’d gained from his injuries. Said, of course, while throwing knowing glances in the way of the dark haired boy curled up and watching Newt be checked over with a very satisfied grin.

The aching hadn’t really gone away, but it had abated a little, and the healers could now at least take his pulse without the aid of muggle equipment or spells. Try as they did, the fangs never did shrink back to their normal size, but that was at least some comfort to Newt.

“They say the pain will probably be chronic,” Credence tells him, settling down on Newt’s bedside once the healer has left. Without any care as to how many times he’d already been chastised for it, Newt hears him throw a locking spell on the door without uttering a word. He leans down and presses a kiss over Newt’s mouth.

“We’ll manage,” he replies, “And if not, you and Tina can finally turn me into the kept man you’ve always dreamed of.”

“Well, you’re no wild stallion, for certain. Maybe a daft plimpy, we’d really be doing it for everyone’s safety.”

Newt attempts to blow a raspberry at him, but finds himself caught up in another kiss. He should have really guessed that Credence wasn’t going to keep his day strictly chaste, but at the same time, he can't help but huff into the motion.

“I won’t be distracted from that grave offense, Mr. Barebone,” Newt told him.

He immediately regrets it, because Credence gives him one of those strange smiles of his, which may have the fully intended effect of making his heart leap up into his throat, and a flush spread across his features.

“Then I’ll just have to make it up to you,” Credence tells him, sliding down on his bed. He lifts the hem of the long night shirt he’s been made to wear during his visit, wasting very little time before he is plying kisses to Newt’s hip, grinning as his lips brush in to Newt’s wiry curls.

“Credence, I really think that might be inappropria- Ah – _Ah_ …”

He finds himself trailing off, feeling the wet heat of Credence’s mouth on his prick, cursing the fact that he’d been stupid enough to be attacked while the lower half of him was still transformed. It was too reactive a choice, and now he felt that doubly, his nerves not aching from the touch but finding it far, far too stimulating.

But on the other hand, it feels so good, too, and it isn’t long before Newt finds his fingers curled in Credence’s hair, head tipped back against his pillow, reveling in all the slick heat. He's so caught up, in fact, that he doesn’t pay any attention to the murmuring outside his door until the lock is wrenched open, the door flung in.

Both he and Credence sit bolt upright, and Newt vaguely made out the blur of Healer Bligh embarrassedly turning back around the corner. He leaves Tina standing in the doorway, looking over the two of them, particularly nonplussed. Her eyes fall on Credence.

“I’m supposed to sign off to take him home,” she says to Credence. He fixes her with a look, and Newt swears he sees his bottom lip poke out. But maybe that was a residual hallucination, because he could also swear he sees Tina’s mouth twitch into a fond smile as she rolls her eyes.

“…You have five minutes. Then I’m confiscating the two of you no matter what state you’re in.”

“Can do, Auror,” Credence says to her. But when she shuts the door behind herself, it's evidently so that she can shut herself in, perched on the bench next to the suitcase.

“Aren’t you going to leave?” Newt squeaks, and Tina grins, leaning back on the sill.

“It’s my job to make sure nothing goes wrong in your vulnerable state, husband dear,” she says, batting her lashes. Newt watches his lovers share a wink, then flops back on the pillows.

He should have _known_.


End file.
